Sonata
by Pandorama
Summary: He's been playing her a symphony since Ann Arbor. House/Cuddy
1. Prelude

**A/N**: This fic assumes Bombshells and on never happened and that House and Cuddy are capable of being adults in an adult relationship. How novel. Special thanks to melissaisdown and Essy for betaing and gammaing, respectively.

**Disclaimer**: I don't own House and Cuddy. I do, however, have them locked in a barn somewhere in rural Montana, and I'm not giving them back until my demands are met.

* * *

**Prelude**

He does it like he does everything – brash, insensitive, and with incredibly bad timing. She's carrying two wine glasses to the table, both of which she drops.

He stands up and silently retrieves the broom and dustpan and holds them out to her. She just gapes at him. "What?"

"I asked if you were still interested in getting pregnant." He presses the handle of the dustpan into her palm. "Here. I'll sweep."

She squats down and obediently holds the dustpan steady while he sweeps shards into it, still not speaking. When all the shards are swept up, he takes it from her and empties it into the garbage and returns with fresh wine glasses to find her sitting at the table with her head in her hands. He calmly takes a seat across from her and pours himself a glass of wine, and then hesitates. "I guess I should probably wait for your answer before I pour for you."

She reaches across and takes the bottle from him, filling her glass like it's juice. She takes a long drink. He nods. "Guess that answers that."

"First of all – " She takes another drink. "If you think you're going to spring that on me and I'm not going to immediately start drinking, you're out of your mind. And second of all, having a glass of wine has nothing to do with the chances of conceiving."

"Well sure, not if you want a Mongoloid."

"House." She refills her wine glass. "What made you ask me that?"

"The desire to know the answer, mostly. Although seeing your reaction was a bonus, I have to admit."

She looks at him for the first time, her eyes searching his face for whatever it is she hopes to find, there. "I'm serious."

"So am I." He shifts in his seat a little.

"You're offering to have a baby with me?"

"I'm asking if it's still something you want. Whether or not I'm willing is irrelevant."

She rubs a hand over her eyes, the weight of the conversation already exhausting her. "I'd say it's pretty relevant. What's the point of asking me if _you're_ not actually willing?"

"To find out if you're going to resent me for not giving it to you, for starters." For the first time since the subject was broached, the apple pie sitting on the table is acknowledged. He cuts a slice for her, first, and then one double in size for himself. "I'm not actually trying to screw with you, Cuddy."

She concentrates on her pie for a few minutes, not even eating it, just moving a warm apple slice around on the china and contemplating the magnitude of the moment – both the question at hand and the fact that House is actually asking her out of an apparent desire to better their relationship. Eventually, she takes a bite, chews, swallows, and speaks. "I honestly haven't thought about it."

"Right." He rolls his eyes. "The weekly pilgrimage to the maternity ward is to check on sanitation standards."

"I like babies. It doesn't mean I've been fantasizing about having one."

"So your attention to the ones with blue eyes is just coincidence."

She smiles. "They all have blue eyes, House."

"Exactly."

She slides a hand across the table and brushes her fingers across his wrist, the fine hairs of his arm tickling her. There's something to his tone that stirs her own emotions, and she can't help but think it's a hint of resentment. It stings her. "I have Rachel. And I barely get to see her, as it is. It doesn't seem fair to bring another baby into the equation."

"I didn't ask if you thought it would be fair."

"I know." She twines her fingers with his. "Lucas and I talked about it." She feels his muscles tense under her palm. "And that was what I said."

"You didn't want a baby with him." His ability to extract the underlying facts from her words is uncanny.

"I…no. I don't think I did. And it was easier just to use that as my reasoning than to get into the bottom line." Or the line below that, for that matter, she thinks. "And since we've been together, I haven't thought about it."

"Because you figure I don't want one."

"Because I've been happy with what we have," she corrects him. She feels his muscles relax a little, and his palm turns over to meet with hers.

"Good."

She blinks. "Good? You were just checking to make sure –"

"I mean 'good' that you're happy." His thumb rubs across her index finger and he shovels a forkful of pie into his mouth. She's surprised that he waits to swallow before speaking again. "You still haven't answered my question, though."

"I know." She stands up, still holding his hand, and rounds the table until she's beside him. Lowering her weight to his good leg, she leans against him and kisses him, softly at first, and then erotic. When she pulls back, she licks her lips, tasting apples and cinnamon and wine. "I need to think about it before I give you an answer."

He nods, eyes a little glazed over, either from the kiss or the massive amount of sugar he's just ingested. "Kay."

"Thank you for asking me. Even if it's not an offer."

He cuts himself another slice from the dish and nods before replying. "Thanks for making me pie."

* * *

They don't talk about it again, not for a few days, until she brings it up again with the same lack of lead-in that he, himself, employed. "I'd have to stop working, at least for awhile. It wouldn't be fair to do it, otherwise."

"You didn't stop working when you got Rachel," he points out, ignoring the subtext.

"One kid is one thing. Two kids – that's less time for both of them. And I wasn't in a relationship when I got Rachel. All of my free time went to her."

"You are now. You still go to work."

"Are you trying to guilt me?"

"Wouldn't dream of it. Your powers are far too strong for my measly goyim guilt trips. I'm just pointing out facts."

She sighs, and he watches her unbutton her shirt from his prostrate position. "Rachel's adjusted, at this point. If she were calling Marina 'mommy,' I'd worry, but she's not." She unzips her skirt and her hips shimmy as it slides down. "I'm trying to be realistic. A baby would mean less time with her, less time with you – it wouldn't work unless I took time off. Six months, at the least, maybe more."

"Little Greg would be supportive of that, if it means more time for him." His eyes are trained on the curve of her backside as she sits on the edge of the mattress and peels off her nylons.

"You do realize how difficult it is to have two kids _and_ a sex life, right?"

"Obviously not. And neither do you. Just because your sister popped out a couple of kids and shut down the muffin factory doesn't mean you have to."

She slides on a pair of silky little shorts and pretends not to notice his face fall. "Even assuming all that wasn't a problem – that I took time off and could raise two kids and keep you…entertained…there are other considerations. I'm forty-three. Assuming I could even get pregnant, there are considerable risks."

"That's why we doctors came up with this neat thing called the amniocentesis."

"If something was wrong…I know you look at it from a medical perspective, but there are emotional aspects. You don't just throw out a bad batch and start over."

"Maybe _you_ don't – "

"You wouldn't either, if it was your child." A matching tank top slides down her arms, falling gracefully around her torso. She finally moves to lie next to him, curling into his side in an ironic posture. "You don't have to believe me, but you wouldn't."

"Plenty of women at your age reproduce. Between the Catholics and the movie stars, forty-three is the new sixteen and pregnant."

She doesn't want to know if he intended the reference. "Most of them aren't doctors."

"Most of them are morons. Somehow they still manage to churn out kids with forty-six chromosomes. Stands to reason you could."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you're trying to convince me."

"I'm trying to stop you before you analyze this thing to death. Either you want a baby or you don't."

"Wanting something doesn't mean you should actually have it, House."

"I never _asked_ if you thought it was a rational life choice. I asked you if you wanted it."

She doesn't say anything right away, just enjoys the feeling of being pressed against him and the intimacy of actually talking to him. No yelling, no clinic hours, no domestic disputes over toothbrushes or toilet paper rolls. Sometimes the mere fact that they've reached this point boggles her mind.

Eventually, she turns over so her hands are folded neatly on his chest, chin resting on top so she's staring at the grey stubble on the underside of his jaw. He shifts a pillow under his head so he can look down at her. "It's…_you_. It's hard not to want it."

"I like how you used 'hard' and 'want' in the same sentence, there."

"Shut up." She doesn't want to smile, but it happens all the same. "It's not a requirement for me to be happy, though."

"Hypothetically speaking, though, me knocking you up would be a bonus."

"A…I don't know. I can't just separate the risks from – "

"Oh good God, Cuddy." His hands side from where they had been resting on her back to flop to the mattress, dramatically heavy. "Just answer the question, already – is it something you want?"

Blue locks on blue, and she knows – has known since the conversation began – that this is more than him offering. House doesn't offer things he isn't willing to give. Doesn't _want_ to give.

She tries to tread delicately.

"Do you? Want to?"

"Not particularly."

Her sigh tickles the sparse hairs on his chest. "That's not really the sentiment one hopes for when discussing this kind of thing."

He shifts, and she slides off of him so she can get a better look. Sometimes reading his expressions are all she can do to make sense of what comes out of his mouth. "I don't vehemently not want to. Which is about as much enthusiasm as I'm humanly capable of, when it comes to this."

"I see." And she does, kind of. Everything with him is on a sliding scale of sanity. "So…what role do you see yourself playing, in all of this?"

"I think 'sperm donor' is kind of a given."

She feels something sink inside of her. "Oh."

"Just because we're all but shacking up and I've built up a vague tolerance of your preexisting kid doesn't mean I suddenly want to be a Daddy. Or that I'd suddenly make a decent one. You, on the other hand, are perfectly capable of raising a child, as proven by the fact that Rachel is still alive and you've prevented me from doing any irreparable harm to her, psychologically or otherwise. It's reasonable to assume that you could raise two of them." He pauses and there's a glimmer in his eyes that she can't decide if she likes or not. "Modern capable woman as you are, though, you still can't knock yourself up. That's where I come in."

"I…" She opens her mouth, closes it, tries to figure out what the hell she wants to say to him. "I…thank you."

"You're welcome? I mean, I know I spread rumors about you having a penis, but – "

"I meant for thinking I'm a good mother."

"Who said anything about good? I said capable."

She ignores him. It's a natural reflex, at this point. "I don't want you to be just my sperm donor, House." Not this time, at least. "You asked me if I wanted a baby with you, and you wheedled an answer out of me. I do, but not…like that. I'm not saying you'd have to be Mr. Mom, but…I don't know what I'm saying."

"You want more." He looks utterly unfazed. Like he'd known that all along.

"Yes."

"How much more is more?"

"I honestly don't know. More than just…getting me pregnant. And I think if we did this, we'd have to figure out a way so that Rachel didn't feel like she was being treated unequally."

"So the Squirt gets all the rights and privileges bestowed upon my legitimate heir?"

She suddenly wishes she hadn't waited until they were getting ready for bed to bring it up. Typical cowardice, she thinks – leaving it until the last minute. Or, she supposes, atypical. At work, she confronts the difficult parts head on. At home, she's no better than he is, the king of procrastination. "I don't really know. A lot of it, we'll probably have to make up on the fly. I just want to make sure Rachel doesn't suffer because of any of this."

"You're using the future tense."

"What?" She rubs at the creases in her forehead, wondering how much deeper they'll be when this conversation runs its course.

"Up until just then, you were using the conditional. Now you're using the future. Which means something changed. Now it's not a 'what if,' it's a 'when.'" He looks almost smug. "You decided."

"I – it doesn't matter what tense I used. I'm tired."

"You're smart and you spend ninety percent of your time at work drafting memos and proposals. You know the difference. Which means, your subconscious knows the difference."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, House."

"Christ has nothing to do with this, I assure you. He doesn't mettle in normal methods of conception. At least when there are Jews involved."

"Mary was a Jew."

"And a virgin. You're not."

"Thanks for that update. Can we please turn the conversation back towards the issue at hand and away from…whatever weird religious discussion that was?"

"What for? It's obviously been decided."

She's starting to feel that heavy ache in the crown of her skull, like when she's staring at a budget report that doesn't add up or one of House's doctored case files. "Did I black out just then? Because I don't recall us coming to a decision, either way."

"You said 'when.'"

"No, I didn't."

"You _implied_ 'when,' which means that your subconscious reached a decision while the rest of you was having a conniption over everything that could possibly go wrong."

"I see." Sometimes the way his mind works is beyond her comprehension. Sometimes she finds that infuriating. Right now, she finds it oddly comforting. There are still a few hundred questions that need working out and discussing and she still needs to get an answer of some sort out of him as to his role, which is going to be like pulling wrought-iron teeth, but ultimately, as usual, he's right. She's already decided. The rational part of her hasn't quite caught up to the emotional, but she knows that it will, in time.

And for all his complications and hesitations and resistance, what she's witnessed, the evolution of his relationship with Rachel, gives her some hope. Or not hope, maybe – more suspicion, that underneath the thick armor he wears, there exists someone who does have the ability to bond with a child, in his own strange way. And that whatever he professes to the contrary, he won't be able to completely keep himself from bonding with a child of his own flesh and blood.

She studies him, frowning in that perpetual way he has, and she thinks maybe part of her rational self has caught up. Or at least, it's on its way.

"You don't happen to still keep track of my menstrual cycles, do you?" It's a redundant question, and the northward journey of his eyebrows reaffirms that. "It's depressing that you know it better than I do."

He shrugs. "I have a more vested interest in your vagina. Does that mean you've conceded to yourself?"

"It means…you should probably get in some quality time with yourself, because you're going to have to give up masturbation for awhile."

"Lame." He gives a little nod. "Roll over."

"Why?"

"So I can peel that patch thing off you. It's going to get in the way if you plan on getting knocked up."

"House." She rolls obediently to one side, giving him access. "Do me a favor?"

"I feel like I've already committed to a lot of those."

"_Please_ stop calling it 'knocking me up.' We're not in a Judd Apatow movie."

"Says you. Personally – " he tears the patch off with a flourish, "I'm angling for a biopic."

She studies him, in all his immature humor and convoluted reasoning, a one-thirty-in-the-morning shadow across his neck and chin, and tries to make sense of it for a moment – why now, whether it's right, all of the things that might still go wrong. It's impossible, she thinks, to do, to find reason in a relationship with House. Absolutely all of it defies logic, not to mention natural instinct, except the magnetic attraction she has to him, physically, emotionally, everything. And as much as he scares the living hell out of her on a continuous basis, the bottom line is that the prospect of procreating with him, of having his child, makes her heart race like she's front row at a Springsteen concert being pulled onstage.

It's nothing short of exhilarating.


	2. Lavolta

**I. Lavolta**

She doesn't know if this is his way of making good on the whole equality thing or one of his schemes orchestrated just to annoy her. Either way, Rachel is beside herself with excitement and Cuddy is beyond repulsed.

"Look, Mommy!" Rachel shrieks gleefully, probably deafening the rodent. "Look at his wheel! See?"

Cuddy does see, and she doesn't like it. "It can't stay here," she hisses at House.

"Why not? The little squirt likes him."

"She's _two. _She also likes eating things she finds on the floor and _Yo Gabba Gabba_, both of which are also disgusting. It's vermin, House."

"Lower your voice or you'll hurt Steve Junior's feelings."

Somehow the name makes it even worse. "Please tell me you didn't breed that thing."

"As an adoptive parent, you should empathize with non-biological familial bonds."

"Funny, I didn't see the elder Steve McQueen at parenting classes."

House shrugs. "Come on, Cuddy. Think of it like a gerbil. It's in a cage, how much harm can he really do?"

She stays silent a few moments before countering. "Keeping you on a leash never seemed to curb your aptitude for destruction."

"It's all in the opposable thumbs."

She mutters something incoherent and irritated in tone. Her gaze remains fixed on her daughter, still watching the white rat with rapt attention. "You did this purposely while I was ovulating so I couldn't throw you out, didn't you?"

"Timing may have been a small factor," he concedes.

"Jerk."

She tries to block out the twinge of affection that's creeping over her, but it's useless. She can't help but feel such things for him, even when best intentions are nearly obscured by his antics.

"Come on," she sighs. "If she's going to be distracted, we may as well make the most of it."

* * *

When she gets her period, she's not surprised. The odds of getting pregnant on the first try are slim, but she can't logic away the wave of disappointment that drapes itself across her shoulders like a wet blanket.

"My super swimmers aren't _that_ good," he informs her upon entering her office. She doesn't even bother to consider how he knows that she got it, or that it's weighing on her mind. It's pointless, really, to wonder – his powers of observation defy her comprehension.

"I know." She manages a wan smile. "And I'm sure you're terribly disappointed by the prospect of having to try again."

"As much as I enjoy screwing you senseless for one week out of the month, you seem to be overlooking just how much of a sacrifice I'm making by stockpiling my sperm for your insemination pleasure." He raises an eyebrow. "Frankly, I think I've earned a reward."

She rolls her eyes. "Hard to reward you considering all of the potential incentives are counter to the goal."

"I'd accept less clinic hours," he offers magnanimously.

"I'm not trading clinic duty for you not touching yourself, House."

"What if I refuse to get you pregnant unless you let me off the hook?"

"Even you aren't that big a jerk," she reminds him. "And besides, it's not like you can really hold out on me."

He sighs dramatically. "Foiled again by your irresistible ass."

"Go back to the clinic, please."

As he meanders towards the door, he casts a look of near-genuine empathy in her direction. "I promise to ride you harder this month."

She shoos him with a wry chuckle, and wonders if this is a losing battle. She's forty-three and he's, well, older than that, and yes men and women have managed it like this before, but something about it seems almost doomed, like she's not supposed to succeed at this. If she were, wouldn't it have happened by now? She tries to bite back the thought, and placates herself with the romantic notion that her attempts have never involved House, that maybe this was the way it was supposed to be.

Still, something within her is discontent and perpetually pessimistic.

* * *

He wakes her just past one in the morning and unceremoniously shoves a thermometer in her mouth. She sputters and flails around a little bit, but manages to keep her mouth closed until the thing beeps. He inspects it and breaks into a grin. "Excellent."

"What the hell, House?"

"Just making sure you're ripe for the jumping. Which, by the way, you are. Get those frilly little shorts off."

"I was _sleeping_," she informs him with a murderous glare. Somehow, her hands move on their own to obey him.

"And I was entertaining fantasies of doing you in ways that are unlikely to actually result in conception. Can't win 'em all."

"What happened to your patient?"

"Cured him. Just in time to knock you up. Isn't it nice when things work out like that?"

She crosses her arms across her chest as he tries to tug her top over her head. "You didn't – "

"– compromise patient care so I could get back here in time for your window to open up and make sure you're thoroughly saturated this month? Honestly." He feigns indignation. "That would _so_ go against the Hippocratic Oath."

"House – "

He pries her hands away from her chest. "Oh, calm down. Patient's fine, the team is there with him and between them they have almost a whole brain."

"Your patient is a woman."

"Not according to the karyotype." He looks delighted by the twist. "You, on the other hand, are. So spread 'em."

"Your patient has a chromosomal abnormality?" She scoots up until she's sitting

"Oh, don't do that. Don't get all…caring and crap." He rolls his eyes. "Little Greg has a tight schedule."

She shoots him a look that loosely translates into a series of four-letter words. "It must be hard for Little Greg to book appointments when I own your balls."

"Nice."

She yawns through a self-satisfied smile. "Is there any possibility whatsoever that this can wait until the morning?"

"Not if you want to get pregnant. If you're looking to get one of your socks pregnant, however – "

"Don't finish that thought." She kicks off the comforter. "Let's just get this over with so I can go back to sleep."

"Oh, man, that's getting me so hot." There's a grain of truth in his statement, though: her contrariness has always caused his blood to flow just it a little faster. It's a part of who they are – difficult, argumentative, and uncommon.

* * *

Ten days later, she sits in her private bathroom at work trying to decide if this is something that she should wait to do at home, when she's not facing another six hours of work. She weighs the prospect of six hours of disappointment against the prospect of six hours of wondering, pushes down her nylons and underwear, and pees on a stick.

It's negative, and she's a combination of disappointed and angry at herself for setting herself up for that very emotion.

When she tries again two days later, it's at home, and she has spent the day bracing herself. She almost doesn't look, but she supposes she has to, and by the time it registers that it's positive, House is banging on the door to inform her he's going to use the lawn if she doesn't hurry.

She adjusts her clothes, wipes the tears from her face, and opens the door. "Eight."

"Blow jobs? Neat. After I pee."

"Milli-international units per milliliter."

He nods slowly. "Mazel tov."

She knows his reaction is measured for a reason, and she tries to keep her internal one equivalent. But she is only human, and her hopes rise.

Her hCG levels don't.

They take the next month off from trying, and she buries herself at work and stews over her naïveté. As much as she's tried and as much as she's prepared, somehow she keeps hoping, and every time she's let down, it hurts. She hates that she's only human, and that the whirlwind, impenetrable force of Lisa Cuddy the Dean doesn't extend to Lisa Cuddy the woman.

Lisa Cuddy the woman is vulnerable, needy, and going deaf from the ticking of her biological clock's last endeavor.

He shows up in her office on the third consecutive night she's worked past eight and snaps her laptop shut on her fingers. She yelps. "What are you doing?"

"Crashing your pity party."

"I'm not having a pity party."

He rolls his eyes. "You're having a pity _rave_, at this point. If you wallowed any more, I'd butcher you for bacon. Let it go. You knew these were the risks when you signed up for this, and the more you stew, the lower my sperm count gets."

She blinks at him in stunned surprise, both because he noticed and because he isn't one for declarations of caring, subverted as this one might be.

"Get your coat. Marina's been bribed into submission, so you can't use that as an excuse."

Whatever she's expecting, it's not what he has in store. The music is loud, the drinks are hard, and there is no illusion that he's going to be tender. This isn't an attempt at indulging her insecurities; it's a loud, brash distraction, and later, a recollection of what it's like to fuck without the prospect of pregnancy. She's not sure how sober he is, but she knows she's not, and his mouth is sloppy and impatient on her neck as they stumble out of the cab and into his apartment. His hips pin her to the wall once inside and there's nothing gentle in the way he undresses her. They don't make it to the bed.

She's hungover the next day, but also invigorated, and for the first time in months, she doesn't slap his hand away from her ass when they walk into work together.

When they try again two weeks later, it's somehow different. She thinks that maybe, somewhere in the months before, it became little more than a means to an end. This time, there's a smoldering subtext of desire, and he draws it out each time until he's sure she's come.

In return, she gives him what she knows he wants, even if it's not doing any favors in the fertility department.

* * *

She waits ten days before snatching another batch of test sticks from the clinic. Sets them down on the counter in her private bathroom and stares at them for a good twenty minutes, feeling antsy and tentative and dread all at once. Paces. Eventually, she puts them in her purse and tries to ignore the magnetic pull.

She tells herself she should wait until she's fourteen days past ovulation, but there's the faintest wave of nausea on day twelve, and even though she knows it's probably just from all the anxiety she's causing herself, she breaks down and takes a test.

And then three more tests, while she's waiting on the first one.

It's uncomfortable, for her, being out of control, because in nearly every other aspect of her life, she knows exactly how to micromanage things and achieve the outcome she desires. Even with House, she is in tune with how to work with him – and at times, manipulate him – to get what she needs. Or wants, for that matter. It's not all the time, with him, but it's a hell of a lot more control than she has over her own reproductive system, and it's almost maddening, how little she can do to make this one thing happen. The same thing drunk teenagers can do with a fifth of vodka and the backseat of a '93 Buick, she can't seem to manage.

Except, according to four strips of urine-soaked chemical reagents, she has.

Whether she'll stay that way, she can only wonder.


	3. Legato

**A/N:** A few notes - first of all, I apologize for not updating sooner, but in the aftermath of the finale and Lisa's departure, I've had about as much inspiration as [insert wisecrack about the powers that be]. So, rather than writing something sub-par, I let it simmer.

Note two - some may find this, particularly Cuddy, out of character in comparison with the show's portrayal, as I have attributed such silly qualities as sanity, maturity, and not being a complete dimwit to my versions. If this bothers you...well, I'm sure you're excited about season eight.

Finally, thanks to Essy for betaing and listening to me whine about how uninspired I felt, and thanks to Gavin, my external harddrive, for recovering all of my Stickies upon which I'd written my notes.

* * *

**II. Legato**

Peeing on a stick quickly becomes a part of Cuddy's morning routine: wake up, wash her face, start a kettle for tea – and coffee, if House is there - and head into the bathroom to check her hcG levels.

Five weeks in, they're still rising.

She knows it's beyond obsessive, but she's been through this before and she knows that things can change in a nanosecond. House rolls his eyes and calls her neurotic, but she needs to know, needs to be aware.

The nausea tells her plenty, though, as she heads towards the six-week mark. She keeps a trash bucket under her desk in case she can't make it to the bathroom and keeps the door shut at all times. He barges in, anyway, but he at least has the decency to shut the door behind him.

This time he catches her just after lunch, prostrate on her couch with a cold cloth on her forehead. She knows it's him from the footsteps and the smell. Her newfound heightened senses have, for whatever reason, zeroed in on him more than anything else, and she can't help but compare it to being stoned in college, when everything was intense and specific. It was also the last time she could recognize the scent of guitar strings.

"Did you rub your guitar all over yourself this morning?" she asks, wrinkling her nose.

"Yup." His tone reeks of self-satisfaction.

"_Why_?"

"Because I knew you'd notice," he replies, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world.

She groans as he settles himself at the end of the sofa, allowing her to slide her bare feet into his lap. Rubbing them, she knows, is asking too much.

She is grateful, though, for his self-restraint in the past few weeks, curbing his usual reckless behavior at work and trying, albeit with limited success, not to piss her off too much at home. It won't last – she's not that deluded – but the gesture is touching.

"So have you yakked up your lunch already, or did I make it in time for the festivities?"

"I thought if I lay here in silence for a little while, I might be spared," she murmurs. "Apparently I was being overly optimistic."

"If you wanted me to shut up, you could have just said so."

"I assumed you'd just take that as an invitation to be noisier."

He strokes the stubble thoughtfully. "Well, you know what they say about assuming – it makes an ass out of you and you."

"I don't think that's quite how it goes."

He responds by tickling the bottom of her foot. She smiles despite herself, flinching and squirming. "Stop. Unless you _want_ me to throw up on you."

"You're no fun." She hears the recognizable thump of a cardboard cup being set on the table beside her. "Here. Lemon tea with ginger. Or…ginger tea with lemon. I wasn't really paying attention." He slides her feet back onto the cushion as he stands. "I have to get back to watching my posse of morons misdiagnose our patient."

"House," she warns him.

"Oh, relax. I already diagnosed her and started treatment. Making them sweat is just my reward."

She gropes around on the table, not ready to open her eyes. "Thanks for the tea."

He nudges the cup into her hand. "Thanks for not noticing I was staring at your cleavage this whole time."

She just smiles. They both know very well that she knows, and that, in all honesty, she doesn't mind.

* * *

They agree not to tell anyone until at least twelve weeks. That is, assuming she makes it to twelve weeks.

Naturally, he tells Wilson, anyway, and she is neither surprised nor bothered. Asking him not to say anything left the door open to make his usual exception, without having to direct him to confide in someone. It's a perverted sort of reverse psychology that she's learning, slowly, to wield with caution.

Of course, Wilson is nothing if not polite, and so she doesn't hear so much of a peep about it, and allows him to continue thinking he's being covert when he scrutinizes her stomach or accidentally buys an extra ginger ale from the cafeteria, and oh, would she like it?

The façade has to end, though, and it screeches to a halt when he snatches her stack of paperwork from her at the end of a board meeting and insists he carry it since he's going the same way, and all. She rolls her eyes and waits until the room has emptied. "I know he told you," she informs him in a low, almost threatening tone. "And it's very sweet of you to look out for me and to pretend House didn't once again violate my confidence, but I expected him to, and I'm not going to bleed out because I pick up a few files."

He stammers unhelpfully. "I just – since you – you know – I wanted – "

She gives him a withering stare. "I'm carrying a fetus, not a nuclear device."

"Right." He gives her a properly chagrined smile. "Well…congratulations. And if you need anything – "

"I know." Her expression softens. She really will take him up on it – as soon as House realizes what he's signed up for, as soon as it hits him what's actually happening, she's going to need Wilson to keep him from taking a flying leap down the rabbit hole.

Or worse – into a bottle of Vicodin.

She knows, in the back of her mind, that the risk is always there. Always will be. And she knows that what they're doing comes with enormous risk, not just for her, but for him. He will, inevitably, arrive at the moment when the need to escape and to numb himself from the onslaught of emotion that is too much for his fragile sobriety, and he will find himself calling on his old friend. She knows what addiction looks like, what it does to a person, and she knows what it does to him.

The only question is when – when the moment will come that his willpower and hardheadedness and genius will not be enough to stop him – and whether she and Wilson will be able to fill the void of strength.

* * *

She begins to dream about their child. At first it's abstract and fleeting, but as the days add up and her attachment to the being inside of her builds despite her constant attempts to remain cautious, they become more real. Almost tangible.

She dreams of labor, of excruciating pain and joy at once, of House holding her hand as their child is born. Of cries so real they startle her from sleep, more often than not to find herself clutching House, or when he's not there, his pillow. She sees their child's eyes, sapphire and slate and aquamarine, a thousand shades of blue in rapid succession.

She has yet to dream of their child's face, but she tells herself it's a subconscious defense mechanism, and tries to push away the biting worry.

One face she does see, however, is Rachel's. As though she can already sense that her status as only child is threatened, she attaches herself to Cuddy with a jarring, albeit flattering, ferocity. Morning finds Cuddy flanked on either side by soft snores and restless jabs and the venomous glares exchanged when the two of them wake up to discover that three's company.

She sits down with Rachel, first, since it's simpler to explain to a small child than to House. "You have to sleep in your own bed."

"Why?"

Cuddy sighs. "Because…you're a big girl now, and big girls sleep in their own beds."

"You sleep in the bed with House."

"Yes…well, when you're a grown up, you can sleep in a bed with a boy, too. But not until you're at least eighteen."

"Why?"

She really loathes that question. "Because that's when boys stop having cooties."

"Oh." Rachel scratches her nose thoughtfully. "What if I get a cootie shot?"

"Well…you still have to sleep in your bed."

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

A pair of eyes with an unnervingly familiar intensity fixates on her face. She's being stared down by a toddler.

Luckily, she's had twenty years of practice with this sort of petulance.

"What if the moose comes back?" Rachel bargains.

Cuddy rolls her eyes. "Then we'll just have to call Sarah Palin."

This somehow seems to placate her daughter. She suspects dealing with the other jealous child will be somewhat more complicated.

"You remember how I said having a baby would mean even less time for you, right?"

His eyes remain glued on the television. "Morgana is about to admit to Drake that Armand is the father of her quadruplets."

"That's fascinating."

"What she doesn't know is that Drake and Armand are estranged brothers and -"

"As much as that sounds like a Pulitzer-worthy story, I don't care." She wrests the remote from his grip and pushes pause.

"Hey!" His protests, however, are short-lived. She settles on the couch beside him and the fabric of the cushion pulls against her top, accentuating her pregnancy-enhanced cleavage. The rapt attention previously focused on the television is reallocated.

She bobs her head into his line of sight, evoking a whine. "Why don't you go bowling with Wilson tomorrow night?"

"Because Wilson's boobs aren't as fun to look at as yours."

"I'm serious."

"So am I. He refuses to get a padded bra, something about natural beauty..."

Conversations with him always remind her of tennis. She's always been a good player, which makes it appealing to her competitive nature, but the real pleasure, for her, is in the calming nature of having to stay focused on the ball, to make sure she never loses track. At work and in her personal life, there's always a dozen things happening at once, but when she's watching that ball, her whole attention and energy is trained on it.

After years of verbal volleys with House, it's beginning to have a similarly pleasant familiarity. She doesn't want to consider what that means about the state of her psyche.

"It's been months since you've gone out with him. Did something happen?"

"Yeah - we both started getting laid regularly."

She sees her opening - don't make it about her concern for him, make it a favor. If she has to put out to convince him, then so be it. As difficult as it will be. "Well he's not, anymore. And he's clearly bored."

"You paying?"

"Sure." She knows he'll still make Wilson pay, and pocket the money to use for drinks, but she reminds herself that this is supposed to be an act of charity, rescuing Wilson from solitude.

"Can't go tomorrow, though."

"You have a hot date I don't know about?" She tries not to sound like an insecure teenager.

He finally peels his eyes from her breasts. "Kind of."

She raises her eyebrows, an invitation to elaborate lest she deem it necessary to shift into violently jealous girlfriend mode.

"Don't read too much into this, but I made an appointment with Nolan."

"Nolan…your psychiatrist?"

He runs his fingers through his thinning hair in a rare moment of self-consciousness. She finds herself awash with emotion at this glimpse behind the curtain of his soul: fear, gratitude, pride, lust – he's never sexier than when he's vulnerable with her – and a healthy onslaught of unadulterated affection.

"I've been thinking about what you said…about what role I want to play in this kid's life. I still don't have an answer. I just know I don't want to be anything like my own father." He rubs at his stubbly jaw, almost nervously. "I figure, maybe if he'd given half a shit and gone to therapy to work out whatever it was that bothered him so much, he wouldn't have been such a bastard. Maybe not. But it's worth a shot."

Cuddy sits facing him, lips parted, cheeks flushed, too overcome, and frankly hormonally confused, to decide between crying and mounting him right there. Eventually he looks up from studying his hands and regards her with affectionate contempt. "So much for not reading too much into it."

"I just…" She can't think of a way to end that sentence eloquently. "Sorry."

"Yeah, yeah. I know." He waves a hand dismissively. "Selfless acts make you hot."

She rolls her eyes, but doesn't contradict him.

"You're totally turned on right now."

"I am not," she tells him, as though he'll actually buy the blatant lie.

"Please," he scoffs. He leers at her, a smug sort of lechery in his expression. "Flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, the scent of a woman in heat - you want to ride me like Joe Biden on the Scranton local."

"That's disgusting."

"Yeah, but true."

She glares at him. Not just because she finds it incredibly irritating and intrusive that he can gauge her interest in sex so accurately, but because she's keenly aware that annoying her will put him in a similar state of unintended arousal.

He submits willingly, hauling her forward onto his lap and hiking her skirt over her hips with little to no ceremony. She gives him a lopsided grin before leaning her weight on his good thigh so she can reach between them to unzip his pants. He makes a kind of growling, hissing noise as she works him out of his boxers and hovers above him, the rare moment of having complete control over him going to her head.

"You do know," she murmurs, breathing words across his jaw, "that if you're lying about therapy to placate me, or to get in my pants, I will have to kill you, slowly and painfully, right?"

"As if you aren't already." He's impatient, but he keeps the pressure on her hips, just this side of forceful. "You make it sound like you need convincing to sleep with me."

She casts a look upon him that slides straight into his veins and lowers her head to his neck, breathing warm obscenities against his skin as he slips a finger slowly, almost curiously, into the band of her underwear and somehow manages to touch her everywhere in the simple act of slipping the fabric aside. She shudders.

It's counter to all of her feminist ideals, but she feels more like a woman in the midst of this act than she ever did before – lying limp against a man whom she's both hated and loved, often at the same time, every nerve in her body tuned to him, and carrying his child that she desperately wants to bear his eyes and his last name.

She has never been a delicate flower, never reliant on anyone but herself. But at work, well aware that even though she has held her position for close to a decade, she is operating in a man's world, and to survive, she has to play the game. She has to be ruthless and firm with her employees and with the board. She cannot show weakness, or she will be eaten alive. She has to wait until she's alone before she can cry, and she does, each and every time someone calls her a bitch.

Here, in the confines of her own home, pressed against the sturdy warmth of House, she not only allows herself to be feminine, but she revels in the feeling. Control in bed is rarely hers for long, although she suspects if she wanted it, House would be more than willing to let her take the lead. She likes letting him steer, likes the way he teases and then obliges her, likes that he has no qualms about adjusting her under him, or over him, or any other way, for that matter. He's the only person she's ever slept with that wasn't afraid to manhandle her just a little.

Admittedly, he's the only one she'd have allowed to do so.

She's gripping the back of the sofa so hard her fingertips are white, and she ventures a guess that House's are, as well, considering how hard he's grasping the backs of her thighs. He mumbles something into her cleavage and she doesn't know why it makes her laugh, but it does.

Afterward, he stretches out along the couch, his leg propped up on the armrest, and she tucks herself into the space between the cushions and his body. "I was thinking," she ventures.

"Didn't seem like it, just then. Seemed like you were pretty busy _doing_."

"Shut up. I was thinking that I might get a piano."

He doesn't say anything for a few minutes. Eventually he clears his throat. "That silence was me waiting for you to elaborate, by the way."

"I was waiting for you to say something."

"Okay: something. Now you go."

She shifts her knee, not quite accidentally shoving it into his ass. "I was thinking maybe you'd like to have one, here. And I was also thinking I might get Rachel lessons."

"You don't mean from me, right?"

"No. From a normal person, who would not teach her to play using a dog clicker and cheese doodles."

"Busted." He groans. "Wilson?"

"No, you moron, Rachel. You didn't really expect a two-and-a-half-year-old to keep a secret for longer than ten minutes, did you?"

"Of course not. That's why I bribed her."

"Well clearly, she played you like a fiddle. Which serves you right for teaching her how to play people in the first place."

"The irony."

Cuddy smiles against his bare chest. "I thought you could pick it out."

"Can I do you on it?"

"No."

"No meaning yes?"

"No meaning…" She sighs. There's not much point in pretending. "Probably."

"Better get one soon, before you're too fat for piano sex."

"House," she murmurs, warning him.

"I know, I know. We're still pretending you're not growing a parasite in there lest it sense your optimism and vacate. I was just referring to you getting fat in general."

"You are such an ass."

"That's the father of your parasite you're talking to."

It's the first time he's used the word, as far as she knows – and she doubts he's said it in front of Wilson – and she isn't prepared for how completely it impacts her. She knows part of it is probably that her body is producing hormones at a rate comparable to the rate at which House produces insults, but the tenderness of the word, the meaning, is overwhelming. She's halfway sure she can feel her uterus contract.

That night, she dreams of their child's face.

It has his eyes.


	4. Dolente

**III. Dolente**

When this all began, Cuddy never expected to make it this far. She's hardly a glass-half-empty sort of person, but she's also never been under any delusion that the glass is shatterproof. Her skills as a practitioner may have been dulled by her time behind a desk, but she's developed an almost reflexive ability to assess risk.

The odds of her having made it to ten weeks were not in her favor. But then, neither were the odds of her and House managing to cobble together something that almost resembles a functional relationship.

"I have an appointment tomorrow," she tells him, shoving his feet gently off of her coffee table.

He waits a split second before propping them back up. "You say that like I haven't gone through your calendar."

She sighs. One of these days, she's going to give up trying to come up with a password he can't intuit. "I'm leaving it up to you if you want to come with me."

"I always want to come with you."

"That is bullshit."

He rolls his eyes. "Okay, fine. But usually I wait, being the chivalrous gentleman I am."

"Still bullshit, but not unappreciated. And you know what I meant, so stop deflecting. I won't be offended if you don't want to."

"I'm pretty sure you will be. And that you'll blue-ball me for six weeks if I don't decide I 'want' to be there." He glances at her. "Okay, two weeks with the hormones."

She settles in her desk chair and winces as the clasp of her skirt digs into her flesh. Size two is no longer cutting it. There's a mild delight in the fact that she's expanding to accommodate life, but she still can't bring herself to buy the next size up. Somehow, buying bigger clothes is just as reckless in her mind as buying infant-sized onesies: she doesn't want to tempt fate. She stopped doing that when she lost Joy.

Instead, she unhooks herself and slides the zipper open just enough so she can breathe. House looks on with the same focus usually reserved for Prescription Passion. "Fine, I want you to come. But I'll understand if you don't, and I will do my best not to subconsciously hold it against you."

He scratches his stubble, a habit she's come to take as a sign of discomfort. "I'll let you know."

"By any time in particular, or just - "

"If I'm there, it'll be obvious. If I'm not...also obvious."

She resists the urge to stab him with the stiletto currently kicked under her desk. Instead, she decides on emotional retribution. "Well if you don't mind watching Rachel while I'm there..."

"Touché." He hauls himself off the couch and faces her, eyes fixated on her poorly suppressed smirk. "So this is how it's going to be? You're going to blackmail me into parenting?"

Her smile falters and she sighs. "No. I don't want - I'm not going to force you into anything. I'd just like it if you showed up for the important parts."

"So peeing in a cup and being humiliated by an ultrasound tech who probably got their degree off eBay counts as important now?"

"It does to me." She shakes her head almost imperceptibly. "Forget it, House. It's fine. I'm not going to make you babysit if you don't decide to come. Just - if you want to be there, be there. If you don't..." She shrugs. "That's fine."

The fact that it's not fine is blatantly obvious to both of them, but he leaves without disputing her claim, and she settles back behind her desk, trying to push the worry and the disappointment from her mind.

* * *

Like everything else related to this endeavor, Cuddy tries not to get her hopes up and fails miserably. She's more than disappointed when he doesn't show: she's terrified that it's a sign of things to come. That he's regretting his offer, or worse, that he's been banking on it being an empty gesture all along and that the prospect of hearing a heartbeat is too much for him.

The moment she hears it herself, though, she stops worrying. Not because she's not, but because there is no empty space in her self for worry to reside. All that matters is that this is her moment of triumph, of connection, of euphoria. She's heard thousands of heartbeats before, none so wonderful as this.

She cries for a good twenty minutes and thinks maybe it's better House isn't there, because that would undoubtedly scare him more than anything on a Doppler.

When she composes herself and returns to Princeton-Plainsboro, Wilson is pacing outside her office. Instinctually, her hand closes tighter on the handle of her briefcase, where she has stowed the sonogram, as though she can protect a picture from whatever excuse he's here to pass along.

"He tried," comes the inevitable when the glass door to her office swings shut, the blinds rattling against the frame. "He got held up with a case. I swear to God, Cuddy, he tried."

"And he sent you to vouch for him."

"He's in the morgue. His patient crashed and they couldn't – he tried. He really did."

She doesn't know whether to believe him or not; Wilson is endlessly, annoyingly kindhearted and even if he were capable of telling a convincing lie, she doubts he'd lie to her about this. But then, he also has a loyalty to House that knows no bounds. Sometimes she thinks he's the incarnation of a political wife. And maybe a political husband, at the same time.

She decides that if any of this is going to work out, even by the twisted standards they all share, honesty is the best approach. She needs to be prepared for the forecasted shitstorm whenever it arrives. She tells him as much, and he nods. "I know. I'm not covering his ass, for once. He looked almost…guilty."

Cuddy studies him, sincerity oozing out of every pore. She's become adept at reading blue eyes. Usually brown ones are a bit more of a puzzle, but maybe he had blue eyes in another life. Maybe he's just that incapable of deceit. "You do know Jews don't have godparents, right?"

His expression relaxes. "I'm not angling for anything besides favorite Uncle Jimmy, I swear."

"Just don't bring the moose into it. You're still on Rachel's list."

* * *

He doesn't ask to see a sonogram. Instead, he accosts her in the hallway and rattles off a series of statistics in a hushed tone. "Everything's normal. In spite of its parentage," he pronounces. His expression gives away nothing.

"Imagine that." She snatches the stack of papers out of his hands. "You violated HIPPA again."

This time, he looks smug. "As your emergency contact, health care proxy, and giver of life-creating sperm, I was deemed a worthy recipient of your records."

"No, you weren't. You told them you were my PCP. I need to find a doctor with a less stupid receptionist."

"Less stupid's not a thing."

Her eyes narrow. "Neither is you being my primary care physician. We'll call it even."

"Whatever floats your knocked-up boat." She swears she can see the faintest of smiles at the phrase "knocked-up."

As she walks away, she offers a soft smile over one shoulder. "Thank you."

* * *

Ten weeks slide into eleven, eleven into twelve, and Cuddy slides into a size six and a volatile mood. There are already rumors, but that's nothing new, aside from the fact that for once, they're true. She doesn't want to tell anyone until she's sixteen weeks, until after she's had the amnio, but it becomes more and more apparent, along with her figure, that she's not going to be able to hide it until then.

She's trying to shimmy her way into her skirt when he scuffles in, clutching a cup of coffee, and fixes his gaze on the puckered fabric of her blazer.

"Babies get all the fun toys," he murmurs.

"I seem to recall you having your fun with them last night."

"Not nearly as much as I was hoping for."

"They hurt, House. And your grabbing them doesn't help. Be grateful I haven't declared my chest a hands-free zone."

"Testy this morning, aren't we?" He sips his coffee with a pronounced slurping noise. "The little bloodsucker got you up on the wrong side of the bed again?"

"Don't call it that, and yes, thanks for asking. I'm cranky because I'm tired, hungry, nauseas, bloated, and wired all at the same time and you're finding far too much entertainment from pushing my buttons."

He looks at her, assessing, and she feels a chill go up her spine as though he'd run an ice cube along it. Finally, he lets out a soft breath. "I thought we'd have more time."

"More time for what?" She crosses her arms across her chest. The ice cube is complicating things.

"Before you became the irrational, pissy one and I had to be the sane one."

"I'm not irrational, House. I'm pregnant. There's a difference."

He rolls his eyes, but places his coffee cup on her bureau and moves closer, half a smile working its way across his lips. "There really isn't. If there were, only the stupid people would procreate, and we'd all die off because no one would think to put warning labels on sharp objects."

"If this is supposed to be comforting, you're blowing it."

"I could blow other stuff if you'd prefer."

She can't quite figure out how she got from standing up, buttoning her blazer, to leaning back against the mattress in her bra in the space of two sentences. His ability to distract and undress her simultaneously borders on sorcery. "Rachel will be up any second."

"I'm trying to work, here. It helps if you don't bring up Princess Mood Killer."

She obediently stops talking and lies back, feeling the ice cube melt in a warm pool. "How did we get from fighting to fucking so quickly?" She muses aloud as he works at unsticking the zipper of her skirt.

"First of all, we weren't fighting, and second of all, we're definitely not fucking. Yet. Did you Krazy glue this thing?"

"Please, let's not talk about how fat I am, shall we?"

"Fine by me."

"You know," she manages to ease her skirt up over her hips without wrinkling it too terribly, "not every problem can be solved with sex."

"Listen, either you can keep bitching and I can worm around an actual apology I don't feel I owe you, prompting you to be even more pissed and cold-shoulder me for two days, or I can implement my patented mood enhancing techniques so we're both satisfied. I'm down for either, but I'll leave it up to you. Just inform me soon so if it's not going to be the fun one, I can go take a shower and indulge myself."

"For a genius, you've got some rudimentary solutions."

"Why mess with what works?"

He's right, of course, and by the time he's lying half-comatose on her bed and she's smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt, the nausea and the hunger have both been subdued in favor of the afterglow, and she feels strangely energetic. "Magic sperm," he tells her, lazily, before she can even voice her appreciation. "Gonna market it one of these days."

"Good luck with that." She kneels over him and kisses him gently. "Try not to doze off for too long. It would be nice if you could be in before, say, noon."

He mumbles something and yawns. She can't help but feel a surge of affection for him, grateful beyond words that he's here, awake or not.

* * *

Every day since she moved into her house, Cuddy has driven the same route to work. She likes the familiarity of it, as well as the subtle changes that reflect the passage of time. It's something of a metaphor for her own life – the same path, with inevitable adjustments.

Two years ago, the cupcake store on the corner of Lake Street and Hamilton was a doughnut shop; the coffee shop on Collins was amusingly named Grounds for A Peel as a subtle nod to the neighboring law offices before it became a Starbucks. The park she now takes Rachel to on weekends had been an abandoned lot before the city had given into the demands of those displeased by its use as a hangout for high-school kids playing hooky.

When she was beginning the in vitro process a few years ago, the stationary store a few blocks from the hospital had hung up a "going out of business" sign. She'd watched as the store emptied and remained vacant, not unlike her uterus, for months, until, finally, the boards began to come off the windows and the interior repainted in soft pastels. The foolish notion that it had been some sort of sign was not one of the moments she relished, and for years, Cuddy had associated the store with her own inability to conceive. She had purposely purchased the crib for Joy, and later, Rachel's things, from a different store, for whatever reason, still unable to set foot inside.

The day before she reaches thirteen weeks, Cuddy ventures inside for the first time. The promise she made to herself that she wouldn't buy anything until after the amnio is abruptly broken when she sees it, a tiny cream-colored hat with hand-stitched paw prints and animal ears no bigger than her thumb. She tries fleetingly to resist the temptation.

As the salesgirl folds the hat into layers of tissue paper, she smiles at Cuddy. "Is it a gift?"

Cuddy pauses and, for just a moment, lets her fingers drift across her abdomen as she reaches for her purse. "No. No, it's…for me."

The girl congratulates her and hands her the bag, and it's the first time Cuddy has ever had it happen, had someone look at her with that same twinge of jealousy with which she's looked at every woman with a burgeoning belly or a squirming baby for five years.

On the way home, she begins to bleed.


	5. Elegy

**IV. Elegy**

The blood is visible on her skirt: ivory-colored silk, now mottled with damning red. She's been through this before, and knows there's no possibility of this being anything besides unequivocal, total loss. What she'd pushed aside as soreness and spotting she now recognizes as foreboding. Not that it would have helped to realize, she thinks morosely. This was the inevitable end. Just like always.

She calls Marina and lies about a crisis at work, would she please stay the night? She agrees, leaving Cuddy to seek sanctuary in one place she never imagined she'd consider for that purpose.

House is still at the hospital, and she doubts he'll be back before midnight. She knows that she should call him, if for no other reason than to let him know that she's not at home, but can't bring herself to dial. Instead, she shuts off her Blackberry, changes into a pair of House's pajama pants, and searches for what she knows must still be there, somewhere. It doesn't take her long. She knows him, knows how he thinks. It's lucky, she muses, that she's dating someone who has a constant supply of heavy-duty painkillers. Judging from experience, she knows she'll need them. The fact that they'll numb the biting sense of grief is a merciful bonus.

She climbs into his bed and waits - for the Vicodin's effects, for the cramps to subside, or to intensify, for what comes next. She doesn't want to think about it, but it lingers, relentless, in her mind as she drifts off.

The sound of his voice drags her from sedated sleep. She doesn't know how long she's been asleep, but the ache is still there. She's not sure if it's physical or emotion, and she doesn't really care. It hurts all the same.

The look on his face makes it clear. She shifts, her head swimming, and realizes with a delayed sense of dread that it's not just intuition that told him what he needed to know. There's blood on his sheets.

"House," she manages.

"Did you do an ultrasound?"

Whatever she expected him to say first, it wasn't that. "No."

"It could be placenta previa." His tone is almost impatient. "We should get you seen. If you don't want to go to - "

"When was the last time you miscarried?" She doesn't mean for it to sound so harsh. "It's not a zebra, House."

He stands silent a few moments, and she realizes: he knows exactly what it is. He just doesn't want it to be the truth.

"Okay." His voice is softer than she's heard it in a long time. Awkwardly, he sits on the edge of the bed. "Tell me what to do. I don't..." He doesn't finish.

"Help me into the tub."

It's strange, him pulling her up, wrapping an arm around her to walk her to the bathroom. She's lost count of how many times she done that for him, run him a hot bath and been his brace when he could barely manage to sit down. Now he's the one holding her up, lowering her down, sitting out the pain with one eye on her vital signs. She doesn't need him or anyone else to tell him what's going to happen, or how stupid it was for her to seclude herself when she's at risk for heavy blood loss. There's a part of her that still wants to be alone for this, both because she doesn't want him to see her like this, and because the image she had in her mind of him by her side as their child came into the world is one she wishes she could preserve. She doesn't want it tarnished by the reality that he'll be holding her hand as her body betrays her, rejecting the prospect of life.

* * *

The Vicodin helps, until it doesn't anymore. She doesn't know how long they've been sitting there, how long she's been silently watching the rivulets of blood trickle towards the drain. She wants to scream at the drain to stop, that it can't have this, can't have _it_. She feels robbed.

She draws her eyes from the porcelain and crimson and to House. He's said maybe five words in all the time they've been sitting here. It's almost frightening, how submissive he's being, sitting on the tile, trying not to let on that his leg is beginning to cramp, intermittently reaching over to feel her pulse and let his hand linger, and she thinks she'll kill him if he says it aloud, but she knows he's sorry.

"It's worse," she says, almost in a whisper. He meets her eyes, and in that moment, she thinks she'd give anything to know if their child would have had the same ones.

"Do you want another pill?" He nods to the orange bottle on the sink. He knows she's not talking about relative pain.

"No." She leans her head back against the wall. "It's the closest I'm ever going to get to labor. I might as well feel it."

"Lisa," he murmurs. She feels a bolt of something go through her – it's the first time he's called her that since they've been together. "You can still – "

She cuts him off. "Don't. I'm can't do this again. Just…don't."

He's carried back to the night she lost Joy, and a question forms that he knows he can't ask. Instead, he reaches over and laces his fingers with hers.

The small action overwhelms her, in its tenderness, in the implication that he is there for her, in the knowledge that this is happening in his bathtub and not a delivery room.

Finally, she lets herself cry.

* * *

They spend the night in the bathroom. He leaves her only for water and tea, and as the sun comes up, to call them both in sick. He peers into the bathroom, watching her with her head in her hands as she sits on the toilet. He's had a thousand horrific moments in that bathroom, detoxing, searching for his stash, feeling alone, but none of them have scared him as much as this. He has no idea how to help her. There isn't an answer to this puzzle.

Rays of light creep across the living room floorboards and he glances at them as he hobbles through the apartment, the dull ache in his thigh now a searing knot of pain, still acting under the pretense of bringing her a blanket. Rarely is he grateful for his handicap, but now, it relieves him of having to face the possibility that this too, this strange amalgamation of emotion hanging like a cloud, might actually hurt.

In the bathroom she takes in a sharp breath of air as the feeling of loss penetrates to muscle and bone, spreading from her ribs to her shins. Hope leaves her in another warm gush that drains her of the last chance at carrying a child.

The unthinkable is still to come, and she knows that this, in comparison, will be nothing. In hours or days, she will have to face the reality of a miscarriage at this stage, and when she plants another star magnolia along the edge of the back yard, it will be a memory and a grave at once. She waits in silent dread, certain that this will be the last attempt at duping nature.

A sudden burst of rage erupts as tears, and she folds forward to lay her head on her hands, grimace buried in the creases of her palms. The sheer totality of impossible events that have led her to this moment should not have culminated this way. It was supposed to be the apex of an unlikely story, the validation of all the things that were never supposed to be: hers and House's, the prodigal child of the tortured genius and the woman damned to love him.

She thinks to herself that nature has wasted a precious chance.

* * *

The day wears on, and the bleeding wanes, though they both know it won't be for long. He changes the sheets and brings her to bed, a white pill and a glass of water on the nightstand a silent suggestion. She lies down and lets him cover her, eyes trained on the glass and how the room appears to float behind it.

His weight and form behind her are unexpected, but she doesn't move, doesn't speak, only allows the feeling of his body against hers to keep her tethered to sanity until she drifts off to sleep.

When she wakes, it's dark again, and she is alone.

The first notes bounce off of her subconscious, impenetrable to all else but the hollow feeling that encases her, but eventually she hears them, slow but spontaneous and elegantly mournful, echoing around walls and saturating the air. Maybe it's only in the lowest of moments, when she reaches the same place of melancholy that he revels in, that she can truly hear his music, but as she listens, connecting the threads and slivers of their time together, she hears for the first time what he's been playing all along, note by note, chord by cord: a sonata in full, movements across decades, fragmented for her to hear without knowing what it was.

He's been playing her a symphony since Ann Arbor.

The music surrounds her in an embrace that reminds her of the first night they spent together after the collapse, after she found him in the same bathroom, at the same point of desperation and aching she feels now. His arms encircling her, his breaths on her shoulder, the thump of his heartbeat against her filling her with a sense of having finally found home.

If this is the extent of what she is allowed in life – House and Rachel – it will be enough.

She wills herself up and stands on legs that feel like lead, but it is with purpose that she moves to meet him, beside him on the piano bench, huddling against him as he plays on. She can feel the vibrations of the notes in the sinews of his muscles and wonders if their child would have been a virtuoso as well.

The music stops in a graceful denouement and he lets his hands linger on the keys a moment before allowing the one closest to her to fall and find her fingers. She can feel his anticipation, his uncertainty at how to grapple with this unknown tangle of emotion. Quietly, she asks him what she's wanted to know every time he has played, and now that she realizes the significance of his songs, the need to know overwhelms caution.

"What's it called?"

She knows the answer before it comes, but the confirmation affirms to her the thing she's needed to know, perhaps all along.

"Lisa," he tells her. "It's called 'Lisa.'"

**( end )**


End file.
